TY - JOUR
T1 - IX - Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil
AU - Varden, Helga
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/7/1
Y1 - 2021/7/1
N2 - This paper starts by sketching Kant's four ideal legal and political conditions-'anarchy', 'despotism', 'republic', and 'barbarism'- before showing their usefulness for analysing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called 'state of nature' ('anarchy') or in 'civil society' ('republic'), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or 'pockets' of our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant's ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt's ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a fourfold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression.
AB - This paper starts by sketching Kant's four ideal legal and political conditions-'anarchy', 'despotism', 'republic', and 'barbarism'- before showing their usefulness for analysing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called 'state of nature' ('anarchy') or in 'civil society' ('republic'), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or 'pockets' of our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant's ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt's ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a fourfold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression.
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U2 - 10.1093/arisoc/aoab002
DO - 10.1093/arisoc/aoab002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118155226
SN - 0066-7374
VL - 121
SP - 221
EP - 248
JO - Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society
JF - Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society
IS - 2
ER -